One of the greatest Old
Masters in 15th century France, Enguerrand Quarton's contribution
to French painting
was in the area of religious panel
paintings, courtly illuminated
manuscripts and altarpiece
art. Six paintings by Quarton are documented, but only two of these
survive. They are The Virgin of Mercy (1452, Musee Conde, Chantilly),
created with the assistance of the unknown artist Pierre Villatte; and
The Coronation of the Virgin by the Holy Trinity (1453-4, Musee
Municipal, Villeneuve-les-Avignon). These impressive works of Christian
art combine elements from Flemish
painting (by Jan van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden) and Gothic
sculpture, as well as motifs from the Sienese
School of painting (notably Simone Martini who also worked at the
papal court in Avignon) on the other. In addition, art historians at the
Louvre Museum in Paris now attribute
to Quarton the Pieta de Villeneuve-les-Avignon, commonly known
as The Avignon Pieta
(c.1454-6, Louvre), arguably the finest French tempera
painting of the era. As a result, he now stands alongside Jean
Fouquet (1420-81) as one of the greatest painters of 15th century
Europe.

Biography

Born in Picardy around 1415 or earlier,
Quarton (the Latinized version of Charonton or perhaps Charreton) probably
received his training between 1430 and 1440. Judging by the many Gothic
elements in his work, his style was formed in northern France. The monumental
quality of his paintings and of certain of his symbols is derived from
Gothic cathedral sculpture, but there is also ample evidence of the influence
of Flemish painters,
like Jan van Eyck (1390-1441), Robert
Campin (Master of Flemalle) (c.1378-1444) and Roger
Van der Weyden (1400-1464). During the 1430s Picardy lay in the sphere
of influence of Burgundy and such contacts would have been readily available.

The realism that Quarton absorbed from
these sources makes him a 'modern' artist in the middle of the 15th century,
sensitive to outward forms, to the lineaments of a face or landscape,
as well as to the new-found fascination of city life. Quarton, however,
always kept this wealth of detail within the bounds of a vision of form
that derived as much from the painting
of northern France as from the Midi. From the secular Gothic tradition
he had inherited his ability in the handling of imposing and expressive
arabesques. Provence gave him its special quality of light and landscape,
which resulted in sketchy outlines accentuated by short shadows, with
the simplified masses broken up into facets.

Quarton was never in Italy despite the
many parallels with the work of Domenico
Veneziano (1410-1461), Paolo Uccello
(1397-1475) and Andrea del Castagno
(c.1420-57), with whom, in fact, he had no direct connection. He was affected
by the type of Italian Renaissance art
that had been 'translated' in Provence - that of the time of Simone
Martini and Matteo Giovannetti, from whom he borrowed several motifs.
The likeness of some details in his work to the Early
Renaissance art of Florence is explained by his contact with the paintings
he saw in the houses of the numerous Florentine bankers and merchants
who had settled in Provence. In Provence he came face to face with a painter
who, like himself, came from the north and had been formed by the art
of Van Eyck and the painters of Tournai, but had also been influenced
by the Midi to the point of being the founder of the Provencal 'cubist'
style. This was the Master of the Altarpiece of the Annunciation,
which was executed at Aix between 1443 and 1445, the exact time when Quarton
was staying in the city.

All this receptivity tends to prove that
Quarton was relatively young when he came to Provence. He is heard of
in 1444 in Aix, two years later in Arles, and the next year in Avignon,
where he stayed until 1466, after which there is no more mention of him.
The date of his death is unknown, but details exist of seven contracts
made between him and various clients: nobles, rich merchants, clergy and
fellow-artists. They all concern large altarpieces including predellas
(1446-7, 1452, 1453-4, 1461, 1462-4 and 1466) as well as a processional
banner (1457-8). Two of the paintings described have survived, and allow,
by comparison, two other non-documented works to be safely attributed
to the artist. Curiously, there is no evidence that Quarton received any
commissions from Rene of Anjou, the princely ruler of Provence, despite
the fact that Rene was a keen patron of the arts and patronised many other
artists, and the fact that Quarton produced various types of miniature
painting for important figures at Rene's court, such as the Chancellor
of Provence for whom Quarton painted the illuminated manuscript known
as The Missal of Jean des Martins (National Library of France,
Paris).

The Virgin
of Mercy

The altarpiece La Vierge de Misericorde
(The Virgin of Mercy) (Musee
Conde, Chantilly) was commissioned in 1452 in Avignon from Quarton
and Pierre Villate by Pierre Cadart, Seigneur du Thor, in the diocese
of Limoges. He wished his deceased parents to be portrayed at the feet
of the Virgin in company with their patron saints, the two Saints John.
The contract also mentions a predella but without specifying a
subject. Doubts about whether the Chantilly panel was the combined work
of the two artists or of Quarton alone have been resolved by the painting's
similarities to Quarton's Couronnement de la Vierge (Coronation
of the Virgin). It is therefore presumed that Villatte executed the least
important part of the altarpiece, the lost predella. The Chantilly
painting is impressive by virtue of the grandeur of its composition and
a dominant rhythm.

Coronation
of the Virgin

The contract for Le Couronnement de
la Vierge (Hospice of Villeneuve-les-Avignon) is the most detailed
to survive for a medieval work of art. It was drawn up in 1453 between
Quarton and Jean de Montagnac, Canon of St-Agricol d'Avignon and chaplain
of the church of the Charterhouse of Villeneuve. The work, destined for
the altar of the Holy Trinity at the Charterhouse, must have been finished
in September 1454. It could not have included a predella, and the
dais specified in the contract is lost. The plan was extremely ambitious.
It evoked the Christian order of the universe in its entirety: Paradise
with the saints and the elect, Purgatory, the world, showing the two holy
cities of Rome and Jerusalem and their grandest monuments, and, finally,
Hell. The Holy Ghost was to be represented in the form of a dove, and
there was to be no difference between the Father and the Son, according
to the dogma of the Council of Florence in 1439.

Some changes of detail were left to the
painter, according to his artistic sensibility and the requirements of
balance and three-dimensional harmony. In fact around the Trinity, Quarton
painted a pattern of red and blue angels not unlike those in Fouquet's
Melun Diptych
(1450-55, Koninklijk Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp; Gemaldegalerie, SMPK,
Berlin).

In 1449, during an illness, Montagnac made
a will requesting a work showing him as donor with St Agricola, before
the Virgin, to be placed by his tomb in the church of the Charterhouse.
On recovering he cancelled this commission and instead went on a pilgrimage
to Rome and then Jerusalem. The Couronnement is therefore a commemoration
of this journey.

For the altarpiece Quarton drew on his
memories of the cathedral sculpture of northern France: the lower portion
displays a panoramic view of the Earth and the subterranean world which
represents Purgatory, while Hell is shown in the predella. A real
lintel supports the tympanum, dominated by the Holy Trinity. In the 15th
century the style forged by the Master of the Aix Annunciation and by
Quarton is one of the great styles of Latin Europe, on a level with that
of Florence and of Spain and Portugal.

The Virgin
and Child

No known document refers to the altarpiece
La Vierge a l'Enfant entre Saint Jacques et Saint Agricol avec un couple
de donateurs (The Virgin and Child between St James and St Agricola
with Two Donors) (Avignon Museum), which is probably incomplete. Its
origin is unknown and the armorial bearings have worn away so that the
donors cannot be identified. The colour, the drawing,
the density, the tautness of the faces, and the sunken eyes, the characteristic
Virgin, the hands, the directional hatching, however, all point to Quarton's
brush. If the bishop is St Agricola, particularly venerated in Avignon,
the picture may well date from Quarton's early days in the city, around
1447-50.

The Avignon Pieta

The subject matter of The Avignon Pieta
(Louvre) (in particular the way St John takes off the crown of thorns)
and also its composition influenced the Tarascon Pieta, painted
about 1456 (Paris, Musee de Cluny), which proves that it is earlier than
that date. It is almost certainly intended for the Charterhouse of Villeneuve,
and certain features of the work, such as the composition, the figure
of Christ, and the delineation of the eyes, hands and rocks, point to
Quarton's authorship. The dirt now covering the painting has completely
changed the colour, which is in fact quite clear and austere, and has
also altered the forms by adding a false chiaroscuro.
The work's donor, a canon wearing an amice, bears a striking resemblance
to the portrait of Montagnac which appears twice in Quarton's Coronation
of the Virgin. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that Montagnac,
on returning from his pilgrimage, decided to recommission the votive painting
portraying himself as donor, which was to have been placed by his tomb
in the Charterhouse.

The Coronation of the Virgin, painted
as an altarpiece, did not take the place of the votive painting (it was
not put beside the donor's tomb, and depicts him very discreetly as a
tiny praying figure). By comparison, the Pieta, with the orientalized
Jerusalem and the donor-canon in the foreground, can claim to be a really
new and 'up-to-date' version of the 1449 project, conceived after the
pilgrimage. Following the examples of the Master of Flemalle, Van Eyck
and Roger van der Weyden, the donor is not portrayed as an archaic figurine
but on the same scale as the sacred personages.

Legacy

Despite Quarton's status as one of the
great medieval artists,
and his significant influence on religious
art in Provence as well as on later Germany and Italian works, he
slipped into vitual obscurity until 1900 when the Coronation of the
Virgin was exhibited in Paris. Since then, the awareness of his importance,
and the number of paintings
attributed to him, has steadily increased, culminating in the attribution
to him of the Avignon Pieta in the mid-1960s.

Further Resources

For details of other painters active in
15th century France, see the following: